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Debate: Should public schools take on the responsibility for offering basic needs like food and health care to students and families?
Schools may no longer be just a place for parents to drop their kids off for six and a half hours each day. Due to various socio-economics, schools increasingly find themselves in a new place of influence. The impact of that influence could have a major impact on communities. Schools have access to be able to provide three meals a day through various breakfast, lunch and dinner programs. Schools have access to healthcare through School Based Health Centers to be able to provide services to students, their families and the community. However, the debate is...should schools have this responsibility?
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Feyisayo Anjorin 50+
Educating a child is the responsibilities of all stakeholders in the education sector, so I'd say that schools should meet the basic needs when the child is at school.
Alyson MacDonald
I think that if kids are getting a proper 3 meals a day at school (if they can't get it at home) it would foster a better learning environment for the student and be able to keep kids from rough households coming to school.
Randy Speck
"We don't know what some of these kids go through from 3:30pm when school is out to 9:00am the next morning."
It breaks my heart sometimes to hear of students who spend the hours outside of school "surviving". My hope is that we can create an environment that uses school as a catalyst for growth, creativity, safety, nurturing, etc. Schools may have had an initial mission to educate children...that of course still exist but the mission has expanded and in some places the mission is to break the cycle that now consumes so many students and their families.